On Monday we brought you a mid-year update on how the U.S. economy is doing so far in 2013, showing continued growth but not the rapid liftoff that millions of unemployed Americans would like to see.......

(L)eading indicators for business investment are looking pretty good. The stock market is up, which should help executive confidence and implies there are good investment opportunities out there. And the data support the idea that business investment will keep rising in the second half of 2013. For example, take new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft. This is new orders for the equipment businesses use, whether factory machinery or new desks and chairs for office workers. The orders data tend to presage future investment. And it has continued rising fairly steadily in recent months.

Still, orders are just back to the level before the housing crash and financial crisis; the production deficit we ran during the Great Recession persists.